Book

To Do

There are many things I need to do to design my book. I have the following book:

which I will read through to give me ideas on book design and how to publish a book. It also has a chapter on Adobe In-Design which may prove useful.

I will also have a look at these:





I have to think of a typeface and make a maquette of the book, which is basically a rough model – a dummy book and needs to be presented on 11 February. I need to be looking at the form and content of the book now – the whole process happens together – research, taking pictures and designing the book.

The design of the book must be appropriate with the subject matter.

Three copies of the book must be produced and I may be able to use some of the images from the last project. I’ve also got to take into account how much money I will be spending on the book.

I need to find some printers. I will try and find printers as locally as possible, so I can keep popping in to see them regularly. As I am photographing in the North West, I think using a local printer to keep everything in the geographical area. I may decide to print my book online using Blurb or Lulu.

Typography

Looking through the Guardian's Guide today, there is a list of blogs relating to fonts and typefaces:

I Love Typography

How to make a font, iPhone apps and who shot the serif

Letterology

A book design tutor on the complications of the letter T and a joke about Franklin Gothic's dark tendencies.

What Type Are You?

Answer questions to discover your font (the password's 'character' by the way!). This takes a while, but it's fun.

Type Nuts

Type-themed wallpapers for desktops and iPhones.













I have always thought that typefaces have ‘personalities’. I tend to favour the more ‘serious’ ones.

Book Printer

I have just received an email from Fluid Creative in Bury, who print books. I need to find out more details about my book before I can get a quote.

Fluid Creative
56-58 Bolton Street
Bury BL9 0LL
0161-764 6464

Dewi Lewis

Publisher Dewi Lewis came to talk to us last week and offered some sound advice.

Exhibitions

Exhibitions involve a lot of work and are usually static (ie they don’t travel around the country). Exhibitions are a partial closure of work, but books are a full closure.

The Economics of Publishing

Print Runs

Usually 1,000 to 2,000 printed. Bookshops may only take 10-30 copies. It’s all done on a very small scale for photobooks. Co-editions are books published in different languages. You only have to change the black plate if all text is printed in black. Co-editions are critical, particularly for books which have a lot of text. Captions to images also need translating and reprinting. With a photobook with a single page of text at the beginning, you can usually sell these abroad as it has limited text and doesn’t need a co-edition.

Retail Price

A hardback photobook retails for about £30-£35. The publisher gets approximately 30% of the money made. A £25 book will be to be produced for £5. They are sale or return. A 5-times mark-up is needed:

Production cost - £5.00
Retail Price - £25.

Prices have to come right down in some countries such as India and Eastern Europe.

Publication Costs

50% of photobooks you see in the shops are self-funded.

Retailer discount – 45-50%
Wholesaler discount – up to 65%
Royalty – 10% net/5% book price – some photographers will take copies of their book instead as they can be used for pitching to galleries. This is more effective than sending a CD or portfolio. Books don’t make the photographer money, but you can take it to an agency and are excellent calling cards.

Marketing

Advertising is very expensive and not done for photobooks.

Editorial coverage – try to get features in magazines like the Guardian Weekend, Sunday Times or Independent – this can generate income for the photographer. Also try photo magazines like BJP, Ag or Foto8.

National newspapers don’t really do book reviews on a photobook, but they review exhibitions.

Dewi Lewis encourage the photographer to get publicity:

• In the town the photos were taken 
• In the photographer’s home town 
• Newsletters/websites of societies related to the topic or the photographer 
• In photo magazines and local magazines (City Life, etc) 

You can sell your books in:

• Local press 
• Bookshops 
• The tourist market 
• Book Launch

The press don’t generally attend book launches, so usually friends and family attend. Try to do this for less than £200.

He advises to approach the photobook from a commercial standpoint.

Photographer Involvement

It is critical that photographers take an active part in their book. They can, for example, write personalised notes to various people informing them of their book.

Paul Graham and Martin Parr both self-published their books initially and used these books to network, leaving them with people who may have a strong impact on their work.

Submitting Work

1 What are the publishers looking for?

They are looking for something which will be of interest to people worldwide.

eg – work on the miners stroke wouldn’t be interesting to people in other countries.

eg - ‘Prisons in Italy’ project – would the UK market be interested in this?

eg - ‘Once Upon a Time in Wales’ contained photos of a small village in Wales, but this project was about a period of time and a sense of community, which gave it more chance of working abroad.

Try to go for international appeal on subject matter. Is there human interaction? Do we feel empathy for the people in the book?

1 Timescale

If you have a project which has some basis of time (ie the World Cup), you need to be thinking about it about 3 to 5 years before the event.

Dewi Lewis has to give 6 months notice of a new title before the book is launched and distribution schedules are very long.

1 How to Submit Work to Dewi Lewis

Look at Dewi Lewis website for more details. Submission periods are in May and December.

They want to see 12 images and a brief outline of the project and also something about the photographer. They accept CDs and PDFs in a slideshow format to make it easier for them to view, don’t just send a CD with pictures in folders inside, make a web gallery or PDF slideshow. If sending prints, make them A4 standard inkjet prints.

Only one or two projects each year get through the submissions process.

To get around this, go to portfolio sessions – Rhubarb, Fotofest, etc – where three or four projects will be chosen. This is very expensive, however, but worth it. You will get to meet people you wouldn’t have a chance of seeing normally.

Submissions may take several weeks before the publishers get back to you. Don’t chase them too quickly – in other words, don’t make a nuisance of yourself! However, if you’ve heard nothing for 7 to 8 weeks, ring them to make sure they’ve received your submission. Remember to include contact details.

Book Dummy

At the end of any project, you do, you should put together a Blurb book for closure.

Dewi Lewis work with colour laser prints and construct them as a concertina book layout – this works with A4 paper (2 A4 sheets folded in half and stuck together, so each page can easily be removed and re-arranged) – this is a working model.

Layout can be done with Quark Express or In-Design.

Like a novel, the photography book is about the work of the author trying to say something personal. There is a narrative which allows people to read it.

Book design and layout

Punctuation, grammar, white space, flow – what are you trying to stress? What do you want to play down? Photobooks are not just about the images themselves, but about the whole thing put together.

Look at the last image – what do you want to leave the reader with? Where are you trying to get to?

Grouping things together – linkages – in the book. This could be a colour, subject, etc. Make sure the book flows.

Repetition is good. Think about the relationship of the images to each other and sequences.
My First Book Design

I've had a bit of a play with InDesign. I've never used it before, so I'm just learning as I go along.



This is what I have come up with so far. This image is strong enough for a front cover (the book doesn't have a white border around it, it is just to show where the borders are).

I messed around for a while with the lettering. I would have liked the grey and orange that I’m using on the blog at the moment, but it doesn’t seem to go with the image and looks a bit ‘tacky’ and gimmicky for a book cover. I’ll have to play around with the positioning, but this will be determined by what image I choose. I don’t want the wording to interfere with the image detail in any way.





Inside is very simple at the moment, but I may keep it this way – why over-complicate things just because you feel you have to do something fancy. I was looking at Trevor Appleson’s book ‘Free Ground’ today and noticed that his book layout is similar – a picture on the right-hand page and a blank white left-hand page. The left-hand page was blank. I may include the interviews on the left-hand page, however, a bit like this:




I have done the size at A4 for now, just to see what it looks like. I think I will give the book a little extra height. Looking at it, I think I will make the background colour black to give more of an impression of night-time.



All said and done, I'm at a very early stage and I haven't even found anyone to photograph yet!

Dewi Lewis Books

I’ve had a look through the new Dewi Lewis catalogue 2008/2009 which contains a range of books. Look at the different book cover designs and subject matter.

WHEN LIGHT CASTS NO SHADOW – EDGAR MARTINS

Edgar Martins was granted special airside access to some of the most interesting airports in Europe. Those he chose have had a key role in history or the history of aviation (for example the Azores, which was a compulsory stop for transatlantic flights prior to 1970 and a military base in both World Wars). Almost all his images were produced at night, using the aprons’ floodlights, moonlight, long or double exposures of between ten minutes to two hours.

DREAMS AND GOALS – ALISTAIR BERG

For every football fan the World Cup Finals are the most extraordinary celebration of the game. As we look forward to South Africa hosting the 2010 tournament, this outstanding collection of photographs by Alistair Berg captures fan culture around the world at its most vibrant and characterful.

ALLOTMENTS – ANDREW BUURMAN

There’s something about the word ‘allotments’ that conjures up an image of traditional values, of balmy summer days spent working the land, escaping in honest toil. A rural idyll far removed from our everyday experience. And even though allotments can be found throughout the world, in our minds they still seem to encapsulate a certain Britishness.

IN A VERY ENGLISH TOWN – JOHN COMINO JAMES

High Street, Buttermarket, Cornmarket, Pump Lane, North Street, Park Street, have such a deceptive familiarity to the English ear that they might be found in any English town. They are names that suggest a sense of continuity and tradition – something very English. Yet the reality is often not quite what it appears.

I, TOKYO - JACOB AUE SOBOL

"Initially I felt invisible. Each day I would walk the streets without anyone making eye-contact with me. Everyone seemed to be heading somewhere – it was as if they had no need of communication. Most mornings I would take the Chuo-line from Nakano to Shinjuku, and even though the train would be packed with salary-men and school girls in uniform, I rarely heard a word being spoken.

ZEBRATO – MICHAEL LEVIN

Using long exposures Levin reduces the landscape to elemental shapes. Each image has a simplicity and purity capturing the essence of the landscape. Many of his photographs feature water and clouds, and show what has been described as ‘the smooth skin of light’, yet it is the architectural intrusions into these clean spaces that most engage him. Wooden posts, concrete barriers, weathered rocks, dilapidated jetties, even the elegant shape of French topiaries introduce elements which seem to haunt the landscape and introduce a human presence.

TRUNCATED – PAUL HART 

The forest interior is more architecture than landscape. Amongst the trees, your concept of time is changed. As you move deeper inside, and the outside world disappears, the wind is calmed and noise filtered, temperature is altered, and light is bounced and subdued. Some trees stand like sentinels, others are stolid in ranks, an army of trees appearing out of the dark. This apparent sanctuary of stillness can strangely transform.

THE LAST THINGS – DAVID MOORE

David Moore was allowed unprecedented access to a Crisis Management facility below ground in central London, between September 2006 and April 2007. This space will be used as the first port of call in any situation where the State is under threat. The environment is sustainable for extended periods and is part of a larger network. Over an 8 month period Moore was able to observe a live working space, continuously on standby, and fully prepared for the most extreme national emergency.

IN A WINDOW OF PRESTES MAIA 911 BUILDING – JULIO BITTENCOURT

In March 2006 the residents of 911 Prestes Maia, a 22 storey ramshackle tower block in the centre of sprawling São Paulo, Brazil, were surprised to learn that they were to be evicted within 28 days. Whilst the building, neglected by its landlord, had apparently been empty for over a decade 1,630 people, including some 468 families with 315 children lived there. In 2003 the ‘Movement of the Homeless’ had moved in hundreds of homeless families. The new residents drove out the vermin and the drug dealers, and cleaned up the place, and the building became possibly the largest squat in the world, complete with a library, workshops and other educational activities.

COAL, FRANKINCENSE & MYRRH – TIM SMITH

The reputed home of the Queen of Sheba, Yemen has been at the crossroads of Africa, the Middle East and Asia for thousands of years thanks to its position on the ancient spice routes. Ten thousand years of trade along Yemen’s Red Sea and Indian Ocean coasts, over its mountains and across its deserts made it a meeting point of people, ideas, money and goods and the centuries of trading generated much wealth.

INFECTED LANDSCAPE – SHAI KRAMER

The accumulation of ruins and military remnants is an important part of what defines the Israeli landscape today – wounds in the landscape that correspond to the wounds in the Israeli collective consciousness.

LANDSCAPES – RICHARD BILLINGHAM

Over recent years Billingham has photographed increasingly within the landscape and this new book brings together this work for the first time. The images are contemplative and thoughtful and reflect his primary concern for the ‘making’ of an image.

DINKY TOYS – KIM SAYER

Dinky Toys must be one of the most successful and collectable toys ever made. These delightfully stylish photographs feature models from the golden age of the Dinky toy – an era remembered fondly by every post-war baby-boomer.

THE VISITORS – CHARLOTTE COREY

Charlotte Cory’s ‘Visitors’ are truly creatures of fantasy and fascination – each so delicately posed that we think “can that be real?” A noble tiger in full military regalia, a dejected donkey slumped in a chair in a sparse studio setting, a haughty kangaroo holding a cricket bat and gazing out at us dismissively. What kind of extraordinary creatures are these?

Book Design

Now I’ve got to grips with the basics of In Design, I can now think about design.

It is not necessary to have words in a photobook – you can just have images in it, or you can write an essay in the front – it’s up to you. However, the content of the photobook should sustain the interest in wanting to delve further into the book.

William Henry Fox-Talbot’s book ‘The Pencil of Nature’ was not originally produced as a book – it came as a series of images that you bound as a book yourself.

It was an early photobook, but wasn’t published. It is inconsistent and has no narrative.



Werner Graff’s ‘Es Kommt der neue Fotograf! was published in 1929 and was a hybridisation of what is a photo and what is a graphic image.





‘An American Exodus’ by Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor has an inconsistent page layout which varies the relationships between images and text, but there is a narrative in the book – it has its highs and lows.







‘The Americans’ by Robert Frank contains lots of white space which let the images ‘breathe’. I think I may do this (not ‘white’ though).



Hiromix’s ‘Girls Blue: Rockin On’ of 1966 is more of an event containing foldouts, etc.

Typography

 

 Bauhaus’ geometrical abstraction influences us today.

At the end of 1925, the bauhaus abolished capital letters in all their printed materials. the bottom of each piece of bauhaus paper read:

“we only use small characters because it saves time. moreover, why have 2 alphabets when one will do? why write capitals if we cannot speak capitals?”





Jan Tschichold was one of the most outstanding and influential typographers of the 20th century. The significance of his influence on the print industry and designers in Europe and the USA is uncontested and his famous typeface Sabon is still a bestseller. In honor of his 100th birthday, Linotype is dedicating this review of his life and work.





Helvetica type is a good typeface to use. Arial is a bastardisation of Helvetica.

Branding

Every company uses the same logo and typeface to define their corporate image. The following from:

http://richbugger.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/evolution-of-50-corporate-logos/

shows the evolution of the branding we see today:

The first Apple logo was a complex picture of Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree.

The complex logo was blamed for slow sales and Rob Janoff of the Regis McKenna Agency was commissioned to design a new one. Janoff came up with the iconic rainbow-striped Apple logo used from 1976 to 1999.

Janoff, however, said in an interview that he designed the logo as such to “prevent the apple from looking like a cherry tomato.”

In 1998, supposedly at the insistence of Jobs, who had just returned to the company, Apple replaced the rainbow logo (“the most expensive bloody logo ever designed” said Apple President Mike Scott) with a modern-looking, monochrome logo.





The first logo was designed by Franz Xavier Reimspiess, a Porsche employee during an office logo design competition. The main part of the logo hasn’t changed much, but understandably after the WWII, they got rid of the design around the circle which seems to be inspired from the Nazi flag.

The first attempt at proper branding came in 1953 when Abram Games was commissioned to design the BBC’s on-screen identity. He was famous at the time for designing the logo for The Festival of Britain of 1951.

His Television Symbol, shown right, was a brass model whose centre circles could rotate. For BBC Scotland the spot in the middle was replaced by a lion. There were also other regional variations as well as a matching clock.

Interestingly, Kodak was the first company to integrate its name and looks into one symbol in 1907. After 1935, Kodak predominantly used yellow and red colors and the complete name of the company. First time the Kodak name was completely written in the logo in 1935, which began the use of yellow and red colors as well.




In 1960, they tried to show a flip page as a logo, but was changed to a box and graphic “K” element in 1971. I think the logo in 1971 was quite trendy, but it might have been a little complex. Retaining the 1971 concept, there was a slight variation in the font in 1987. The new font looked contemporary.

Again, like other companies, Kodak decided to simplify their logo in 1996, and removed the boxes. The red color gives a more brighter and structured feel of the company. In 2006, again a slight variation was made in the logo with a rounded ‘a’ and ‘d’, to give a contemporary look.




Back in 1900, when the company was started the logo was a realistic and simple shell which lies flat on the ground. This was a pectin or scallop shell, but today the company has a logo which is bold, colorful and much more simplistic. With the advent of internet and fax machines over the later years, it became necessary for the company to simplify their logo, which would prevent it from being distorted in small images. The 1971 logo designed by Raymond Loewy is very simple as compared to the earlier logos. This has helped the company because this logo is more memorable and recognizable, accountable to the simplicity of the logo. The 1971 logo is still used by the company albeit with minor changes, but it has become so recognizable that it often appears without the company name now.



Today, one of the biggest soft drinks company, was first started by Caleb Bradham in 1890’s. Initially named as Brad’s drink the name was quickly changed to Pepsi-Cola, which is visible in the first 1898 logo. Finally in 1903, the name was trademarked and hasn’t been changed till date.

In the early years, Brad made custom logos for the brand as it became more famous. In 1933, the company was bought by Loft, Inc. The company changed the bottle size from 6 to 12 oz. and came up with the ‘Refreshing and Healthful’ logo.

However, the major breakthrough in the Pepsi logo design came in 1940’s. Walter Mack, the CEO of Pepsi came up with the idea of a new bottle design, with a crown having the Pepsi logo. The ‘Pepsi Globe’ emerged when USA was in WWII, and to support the country’s war efforts, Pepsi had a blue, red and white logo.

This logo became hugely popular, and went on to be the identifier for the company. As a result, in 1950 and 1962, this bottle cap with the swirling blue and red became prominent in the company logo. During the 1960’s when it became even more popular, the script was changed from the curly red, and the main attraction was on the bottle cap in the logo.

We see the first appearance of the Pepsi Globe instead of the bottle cap in 1973. The typeface was made smaller so as to fit in the globe. The Pepsi Globe was “boxed in”, with a red bar coming in from the left and a light-blue bar coming in from the right.

In 1991, the typeface was moved from inside the globe. The red bar was lengthened and the typeface came on the top of the globe. In 1998, the white background in the logo was replaced by the blue color, which also resulted in dropping the red horizontal band. The globe now had 3D graphic and larger than earlier versions. It might be that since, Pepsi and the globe touch each other for the first time in the logo, the name ‘the Pepsi Globe’ was given to the logo.

After 1998, it seems that Pepsi had decided to give the globe more prominence than the script itself. So, the globe came on top of the script in 2003, and in their current logo they have done away with the script altogether.

The Design Process of UK Road Signs

Found this interesting post on:

http://phresh.gr/2010/01/the-design-uk-road-signs/



In 1957, the United Kingdom’s Department of Transport appointed an Advisory Committee on Traffic Signs for Motorways. Jock Kinneir and his assistant Margaret Calvert were appointed as graphic designers to it.

The committee looked at examples from other European states as well as the USA but Kinneir and Calvert found them somewhat harsh and unsatisfactory.

Instead, they developed a more rounded typeface called “Transport” with distinctive tails to ‘a’, ‘t’, and ‘l’, and bar-less fractions, all of which helped legibility.

Until today, two forms of their typeface exist: Transport Medium and Transport Heavy. Both have the same basic form, but Transport Heavy is boldface, to allow easier readability for black letters on white backgrounds, such as those used on non-primary roads, while Transport Medium is lighter, and is used for white letters on dark backgrounds, such as the blue motorway signs or the green primary route signs.

Margaret Calvert was the one who came up with simple, easy-to-understand pictograms, most notably the signs for ‘men at work’ (a man digging), ‘farm animals’ (a cow), and ’schoolchildren nearby’ (a girl leading a boy by the hand, whom she later revealed to be herself), based on pre-existing European road signs.





Marion Deuchars & Margaret Calvert have been working together and they recently produced a work of art in nine sections, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the completion of the M1.

Design Tips

• Don’t underline anything (underlining was only used with typewriters). 
• Capital letters are more difficult to read. 
• Only use capital letters for emphasis, and only if you have to. Make the caps smaller than the rest of the typeface so they fit within the surrounding text. 
• Kerning and Leading – you can kern in Quark and InDesign. 
• Use Leading for emphasis/de-emphasis. 
• Make sure your typeface is readable and legible. 
• Look at the spaces in the book – how do they work? 
• Make a grid in In-Design to work within. 
• Decide on the paper quality you want. 
• Paper proportions (A4, square, etc). 

1. KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid! 
2. Smaller text. 
3. More white spaces. 
4. The PICTURES are the story. 
5. Contrast and tension. 

Order out of Chaos

• Repeatability 
• Composition 
• Communication 

Five Steps to Good Design

1. Consistency. 
2. Hierarchy. 
3. Typography (fonts). 
4. Materials (paper, etc). 
5. Layout (grids, margins). 

Objects of Desire

Leafing through an old copy of the BJP, I found a piece on the best photobooks of the decade where Martin Parr is asked his opinion. The following are excerpts from the article which is copyright BJP.

This has been the decade when people have rediscovered the book. And that's been prompted by some important new references, starting with Fotografia Republica, published by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia to coincide with its exhibition during Photo Espana in 2000 and edited by Horacio Fernandez. It was really the first to publish actual spreads from books and magazines, so we must always credit him for getting the ball rolling. Next was Andrew Roth with The Book of 101 Books (PPP Editions, 2001), whose list was predominantly American, with a few Japanese thrown in. And then of course there was my and Gerry Badger's contribution (The Photobook - A History, published in two volumes by Phaidon in 2005 and 2006), and since then there have been many others.

So suddenly the status of the book has improved dramatically and people now take it a lot more seriously as a contributing factor to our understanding of photographic culture. I have always maintained its significance, being a photographer and knowing that I and other photographers always cite books as their inspiration. History is so subjective; it's constantly in flux. It's usually written by theorists and academics, who don't have the same regard for the photographic book that photographers do. So we think of our (Parr and Badger's) contribution as being a revision of history, taking on board many books and photographers that have been somewhat marginalised and overlooked, and bringing them to the attention of a wider audience.

BETTER BY DESIGN

First off, a good book consists of great pictures. Secondly, you've got to have the production and the narrative that really makes those pictures come through to the viewer most effectively. Every aspect of the book has to be working in its favour. One of the criteria I've used here, in my selection of books from the past decade, is whether the book explores different ways of printing, different narratives and different looks and feels. The way that Dash Snow organised his books is integral to the understanding of his work. Others are more traditional. Rinko Kawauchi's book, Utatane, is not dynamic in terms of production values, but the photographs are nonetheless beautifully laid out and simple to read.

Photographers and designers are exploring creative possibilities a lot more, but all we're doing really is catching up with the great achievements of the Japanese. They were doing all this in their post-war publishing period in a way that was so far ahead of the west it was quite remarkable. The thing that still completely stuns me is that we chose to ignore this. So until I went there in 1992, I had no idea how spectacular the books were. I'd seen the work of many of the photographers, in books such as Mark Holborn's Black Sun: The Eyes of Four, Roots and Innovation in Japanese Photography (published by Aperture in 1986) and curated into shows such as John Szarkowski's New Japanese Photography in 1974, and I liked the pictures. But it's only when you see the books that you realise how amazing they were as vehicles for ideas within photography.

Now we've caught up, and the design aspects of books are so much bolder and more adventurous than in the 1960s and 70s. That was the great heyday of American photography but the books they were producing were not as exciting as the actual work, and you'd have two white pages with a picture on the right. At the same time, the Japanese were exploring full bleed, special cuts and all kinds of other things. Occasionally in Europe and America you'd have someone like William Klein in 1956, who would tear up these rules and do something radical, but in general we were much more conservative. Now the playing field is much more level and we are learning what the Japanese learnt 30 or 40 years ago. This is evident in some of the books in this selection.

We need and require mainstream publishers, but their books tend to be a lot more conservative. So the real workshop, and the place where people can experiment with ideas, is small publishers, or indeed self-publishing. The quality and variety of print-on-demand books is improving. When people like Blurb first appeared they too were very conservative, but they are constantly improving. In another 10 years time, you'll find many more photographers self-publishing their own Blurb books.

One thing that's problematic with all this is that all photographers believe they deserve a book, and that it will have a dramatic affect on their careers. Sadly, very few of these books capture the imagination and become a cult item. For most books, if you sell 500 you're very lucky. Few have the momentum of some of the books here, which are celebrated and collected and known as being important signposts in photographic publishing.

The reason Japan was so successful in the post-war Provoke period was that designers were literally given pictures by photographers and asked to come up with the ideas. Total collaboration with amazing designers such as Tadanori Yokoo allowed photographers to create these incredibly exciting books. But the potential is still underexploited - as is the capacity to be bold, to be exciting, and to really think and problem solve. It's getting the balance right. You've got to have the right project and the right vehicle to bring it to its full potential, and that's not such an easy thing to determine. Photography is often a problem-solving exercise and so is making a book, thinking of ways of making the work you've got come out and sing on the page more effectively. So often conservative design holds things back.

MARTIN’S FAVOURITES

All the books listed here have fantastic images and superb production values that make them, and become classics in their own time. Often quite radical, and therefore sometimes only appreciated after some time, they are all bound to go down as big contributors to our ongoing photographic book culture.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT - Ryan McGinley, self-published, 2000

McGinley almost single-handedly revitalised American photography in a way Nan Goldin had done 15 years earlier, with his images of his friends having a wild and wonderful time. This edition of 100 was a shining beacon of how a small self-published book can announce the arrival of a major new talent.

PRETEND YOU'RE ACTUALLY ALIVE - Leigh Ladare, ppp Editions, 2008




This beautifully-produced book shows the fascinating relationship between the photographer and his mother, an ex ballet dancer. A searing investigation of a strange and sometimes sexually charged connection, it combines notebooks and photographs and remains gloriously ambiguous.

BERLIN: IN THE TIME OF THE WALL - John Gossage, Loosestrife, 2004

Gossage is one of the true original voices in photography. He spent many months exploring Berlin in the 1980s, and this tome is an index of urban possibilities with photography. Never too dramatic and always fresh and original, it is a remarkable journey around the wall, in the run up to its welcome demise.

FLAMBOYA - Viviane Sassen, Contrasto, 2008



Sassen was brought up in Mozambique and has returned to Africa to shoot these strange and graphic portraits. Sometimes posed and sometimes caught, these photographs are combined with a stunning design, in which many of the pages are cut, to produce a strange and compelling book. Her portraits are so original it is difficult to place them.

UTATANE - Rinko Kawauchi, Little More, 2001

From time to time a new photographer arrives on the scene who is difficult to classify. Kawauchi is one such photographer. Her images are so fresh, so simple and original, it almost defies belief. Utatane translates as siesta, which does give you a clue about her images' dreamlike quality. This book has been reprinted many times and Kawauchi is now known and appreciated internationally.

SLIME THE BOOGIE - Dash Snow, Peres Projects, 2007

In his short creative life (he died earlier this year at the age of 27), Dash Snow re-invented how the book and the zine looked and felt. Usually surrounded by matt black ink, he juxtaposed images of his friends with newspapers and Polaroids in both colour and black-and-white. Slime the Boogie was published in a limited edition of 300, and is the best of his books.

CHECKED BAGGAGE - Christien Meindertsma, Soeps Uitgevererij, 2004

This remarkable conceptual project documents 3624 objects Meindertsma bought at auction for EUR200. All of them had been confiscated at Schipol airport during the stringent security checks initiated after 9/11. The book was published in an edition of roughly 1000, and one of the featured objects was given away free with each copy.

HACKNEY WICK - Stephen Gill, Nobody, 2005



This book was the second Gill self-published, and started a remarkable run of publications by one of Britain's newest and most ingenious photographic talents. It features images of a Hackney market taken on a 50p plastic lens camera sourced at the very same place.

WHY MISTER WHY - Geert van Kesteren, Artimo, 2004

This is the most compelling new book to deal with war in the last ten years, and has a feel of a magazine, with thin paper and serrated edges that all add to its immediacy. The title comes from the phrase that van Kesteren heard shouted at him many times as moved round Iraq.

A SHIMMER OF POSSIBILITY - Paul Graham, Steidl/Mack, 2007



Graham is a restless photographer, and is constantly thinking up new ways to represent the world. This book, which consists of 12 separate narratives in 12 separate volumes, was universally applauded on publication.

Gary Badger’s Top 10 Photobooks

Again, this was in the BJP in December. Gary Badger is co-author of ‘The Photobook: A History’ with Martin Parr. Here is the article:



Despite the frequently expressed, gloomy prognosis about the health of the book and the future of the printed page, one area of publishing seems to flourish unabated. Indeed, interest in the photobook has never been higher and is, if anything, intensifying, at a time when photography is subject to great sea changes and a marked degree of uncertainty, especially in traditional editorial markets.

Not all of the publishing activity is with 'regular' publishers. Indeed, large mainstream publishers such as Thames and Hudson and Phaidon, have reined in their photo-publishing programmes, sticking to tried-and-trusted names. The small independents, who are lead by the inimitable Steidl (if Steidl can be called 'small') and for whom a 1500 to 200 print-run is the norm, remain the bedrock of photographic publishing.

As with everything else, the digital revolution has made an enormous impact though. Thanks to online print to order companies such as Blurb, making a photobook is now within everyone's reach. We haven't seen the first online classic but we soon will, and at the very least online printing allows photographers to make great calling cards for regular publishers.

In the last ten years some extraordinary photobooks have been published. Picking out ten to showcase as the 'best' can only be a matter of personal preference, and if ten people were doing it perhaps few would be chosen by more than one selector. I might even choose a different ten on a different day.

A number of elements go into making an important photobook. Firstly, the work. It is possible to make a successful book from less than first-rate images, but in general, the better the imagery, the better the book is likely to be. Secondly, the package presenting the work - design, typography, and so on - can make a crucial difference. Thirdly, the sequencing and narrative drive of the book is vital - that, after all, is why photographers make photobooks, to play photographs off against each other, to create a plausible and telling narrative of some kind. Fourthly, there is the 'X factor', where these elements come together to create a special narrative world of their own, making the book stand out both as a physical and intellectual object.

As in any other artform I'm also on the lookout for newness, although not novelty for its own sake. Perhaps I can call it freshness - a pushing of the envelope, a new twist on an old tale. Here, in no particular order, are ten books from the last decade that I feel meet these criteria in an outstanding way.

MOTHER'S - Miyako Ishiuchi, Sokyu-sha, 2002



Ishiuchi's memorial to her dead mother is a complex meditation on loss, memory, history and desire, beautifully realised and packaged.

THE ROMANCE INDUSTRY - John Gossage, Nazraeli Press, 2002

Gossage demonstrating why he is arguably the best American photobook-maker of the last 30 years.

PRENEZ SOIN DE VOUS - Sophie Calle, Actes Sud, 2007

Ostensibly a retrospective catalogue but an artist's book of the highest order, complete with DVDs and books within books. Stunning work.


UTATANE - Rinko Kawauchi, Little More, 2002

More enigmatic, diaristic photography, from perhaps the best young Japanese photographer to emerge in the last decade

IN HISTORY - Susan Meiselas, Steidl, 2008



Like Calle, Meiselas takes the retrospective monograph and turns it into a complex history, a diary, a meditation, and a great photobook.

A SHIMMER OF POSSIBILITY - Paul Graham, Steidl, 2008



The decade's most enigmatic photobook, a parcel of 'cinematic haikus' that are about nothing and everything but say a great deal about ordinary life, surely photography's mission.

BAGHDAD CALLING - Geert van Kesteren, Episode Books, 2008

The new photojournalism - a professional photographer using cellphone and 'citizen reporter' images to tell us the truth about post-Saddam life in Baghdad.

TRYING TO DANCE - JH Engstrom, Journal, 2003



The new, diaristic photography. A journal of everyday life every bit as enigmatic as Paul Graham's, marking the debut of a major new talent.


PARRJECTIV: JEANS HUNTING IN ISTANBUL - Martin Parr, Mavi Jeans, 2006

A 'company' book, made in a few days, but containing great pictures and packaged together strongly. It even has a bellyband

TEMPORARY DISCOMFORT : CHAPTERS I-IV - Jules Spinatsch, Lars Muller, 2005



A startling, conceptual exploration of how we record history and the contemporary problem of control, public relations and surveillance.

Andy Boag – 25 Years On



Andy printed his book through Blurb and I think it looks great.

There’s a lot of text in the book, which I may or may not do myself (probably not), but it is laid out nicely and is easy to read.

The book’s got a contents page introducing readers to the colliers inside.



And an introduction of why the book has been made.



He’s also got text by Tony Benn and Billy Bragg.



The interviews with the colliers are in-depth.



I like these pages at the back, showing all the colliers’ images together.



Andy managed to get 27 people to photograph, interviewed and photographed Tony Benn and Billy Bragg and produced a great book. I’m getting very worried about my project.

Maquette

I have had a bash at the first design of my book. It looks OK, but could do with a little tweaking. I have left two blank pages at the front and two at the back, but the rest is as follows:



These pages do not have white borders, it is just to make them stand out from this page.



I looked through a few photobooks on the Blurb website and got a few ideas.



This is the contents page which may spread over onto two pages when I have shot all my pictures.



I am going to write an introduction to the book, outlining the reasons why I decided to photograph nightworkers.

The following are the photo pages. I have laid all photographs out on the right-hand page and the little interviews on the left. I’m not sure about the positioning of the text yet and this will probably change. As you can see, there is more text on some pages than others, and I would like this to be balanced on each page without ruining the continuity. I don’t want it to be a difficult and annoying book to read.









This photograph on this page is lighter than the others because it was shot indoors. I will put the lighter images to the rear of the book, so the images are gradually getting lighter as you read.



I decided to put thumbnails of all images at the back of the book. Obviously, I haven’t got enough images yet, but this is what it will look like when it’s finished. Hopefully I’ll have more than 18 images.



At the back of the book, I will put some of my extended essay about nightworkers. The essay will not be fully finished by the time the book goes to print, but I’ll do what I can.

Not sure if 33cm x 28cm is rather large for this photo book. I've actually printed it out at 29cm x 24cm which looks OK, but it's not a Blurb size (just in case I want to go down the Blurb route). Blurb do a 10x8 size (25cm x 20cm) which may be fine.

Maquette #2

I’ve had another bash a the maquette and have learned a few things along the way. I have decided to go with Blurb and downloaded an InDesign template to work from.

I also had to look at colour management which was a bit tricky at first, but I think I’ve got the gist of it. For Blurb, I have to make sure my images are sRGB profiled. I can also use a profile that Blurb have suggested, but it’s not necessary if the images are sRGB’s as their systems will convert it from the pdf.

So this is how it looks so far. I have looked at a number of photography books for ideas. The front cover is the same as before as I think the image used suits it very well. The contents page is as follows:



I have also split the book into three sections, mainly because a lot of my images contained people wearing high visibility jackets. Originally, I was going to split them up within the book, but now I think I will devote a section to them. I got this idea from Trevor Appleson's book 'Free Ground' where his chapters contains portraits of people under the headings 'Beaches' and 'Uniforms'.

I will use the pictures I take of ‘the night’ to illustrate these sections.





Apart from the high visibility section, there is also a section on photographs taken of workers who work inside, so I have creatively called it ‘inside’.



The problem is what to do with the rest of the images. I have called another section ‘inside out’ as the workers are photographed outside, but they work inside, but the problem is what to do with the taxi driver? I like this photo and don’t want to leave it out of the book.



I have also experimented with putting an image on each page, rather than on alternate pages, as I noticed that the pictures married up in twos quite well. This will bring the page numbers down and I originally wanted to create a sense of space and dark which came from having the left-hand page blank and may well go back to this format. At the moment, there are 50 pages in the book, but I still intend to photograph a few more people. I wish I could attach the pdf of the book to this blog, but I can’t. That way, you would be able to see the whole design.

The design of the book is very simple. I am not a designer, so don’t want to attempt anything over-ambitious for a first attempt. I also like photography books that are simple, with no gimmicks, as I feel they detract from the content and get a bit annoying after a while.

I have also been looking at book size. Originally, I decided on 13”x11”, but I cut this size out on a piece of paper and it looked enormous. I couldn’t imagine sitting on the sofa comfortably flicking through a book that big. The other Blurb size is 10”x8” which seems a bit small (you can’t win, can you?!) and it is difficult to imagine what the finished article will be like. I don’t want to get the layout and book size wrong as I will deeply regret it.

I’ve also thought about some of the more stronger images flowing over two pages, but this isn’t possible within the template. To be honest, I dislike this, as you end up with two bits of one picture instead of being able to look at the whole image on one page without bending back the spine.

I have also decided to drop the interview text. I don’t think it looks good next to the images and where else are you supposed to put it. I don’t want to book to be too ‘wordy’, but it may be interesting for the reader to include the interviews, maybe at the back of the book, so the reader can enjoy the photographs, but read the interviews later. Also, not everyone I photographed was interviewed as there wasn’t enough time, so the book would look ungainly if some text was included with some pictures and some not.

Book Design

In the last post, I had decided to drop the interview text for my book. However … I have been thinking of adding it to the end of the book – all interviews in one block. As a few of them weren’t interviewed, I decided the continuity would look awful if I had interviews on some pages and not on others.

However ………… I have looked at Brian Griffin’s book ‘Team’ and I will try it like this:



It’s very subtle and doesn’t interfere with the impact of the photographs. I will probably do the text in light grey. I have also found a solution for those nightworkers I didn’t interview – I will fit two images facing each other. This will, as I have stated, solve the problem of having a blank page where others have text and also ‘break up’ the book a little to stop it stagnating.

I also love the book cover – no text at all. Why not? I’ll also try this and see what it looks like.





The cover of his catalogue has great impact.

One of Griffin’s other books ‘Work’ also has an interesting front cover which incorporates the text.

How to Colour Prep the Book in InDesign for Blurb

The following is taken from the Blurb website:

http://blurb.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/451/kw/srgb/r_id/166

Our digital printers use the standard four color print process that most every printing press uses: CMYK, which stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

These four colors are combined to give you the full-color reproduction you expect with printed materials. Monitors and digital images use a different color space called RGB, which stands for red, green, and blue.

The recommended Color Space for Blurb's PDF to Book workflow is CMYK. This will give you the best monitor soft proof representation and the most reliable print results. Use a CMYK color palette for native graphics and text within InDesign® or your layout tool. The digital presses we use are unable to process spot color at this time and that means spot colors will cause problems when files are flattened due to the use of transparency. So, be sure to convert any spot color to CMYK whether in a Graphics Application like Adobe Illustrator® or in a layout tool like Adobe® InDesign®.

• If you prefer to work in the RGB Color Space, we recommend the sRGB Color Space for all of your images. You can soft proof them using the Blurb ICC Profile.

• If you have already converted your images to sRGB you can either keep them sRGB or convert to the Blurb ICC Profile. If your images are already sRGB, it is not necessary to convert to CMYK because the HP Indigo is preset to convert sRGB to CMYK. Just be aware that there will be a slight color shift when this conversion takes place.

• If your images are Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, Colormatch RGB, or another RGB color space, the optimal workflow is to convert your images to the Blurb ICC Profile optimized for the HP Indigo presses that Blurb uses. Color conversion is best done via an imaging program, such as Adobe® Photoshop®, prior to placing your images or graphics into Adobe® InDesign® or your preferred layout tool. Install the Blurb ICC Profile and convert your images to CMYK using the profile.

• If your images are already CMYK, you also should not convert back to RGB or a different CMYK space. If you choose to do so, there is only a small gain in color vibrancy and much more degradation of the file for the amount of effort needed.

So either work in CMYK or sRGB. I am working in sRGB, so according to this, they will be OK.

Assigning and Converting Colour Spaces

All this colour management is difficult to understand. I’ve found the following helpful from:

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/cp/olympus/technology/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003051994

Assigning Profiles

The main goal of assigning an ICC profile to an image is to tell Photoshop what the RGB (or CMYK) values mean, so that the colours and tones in your image can be displayed as accurately as possible. When you assign a profile you are not changing the red, green, and blue code values; rather, you’re changing how those values are interpreted by Photoshop, and how the image will appear.

To tell Photoshop what the RGB values mean, launch the “Assign Profile” window from “Edit” in the menu bar in Photoshop CS2 or from “Image” then ”Mode” in Photoshop 6, 7 and CS. As you select different profiles in this pull-down interface with the Preview checked, you will notice that the image visibly changes with each profile selected. Each profile tells Photoshop that the RGB values in the image correspond to different tones and colours or Lab values.

The goal of assigning a profile is to tell Photoshop what the RGB values mean so that the colours and tones of an image can be displayed as accurately as possible.

Practical reasons to assign a profile include:

1. Missing Color Space Profiles from Digital Camera or Other Files: If a digital camera does not embed a working color space to its jpeg files or the file you are opening doesn’t have an embed a profile, but you know the images are processed to sRGB, AdobeRGB(1998), or a generic RGB, just assign the sRGB, AdobeRGB(1998), or generic RGB to get the color right.
2. Improved Accuracy from Input Devices: By assigning custom scanner profiles to their corresponding images, you get improved color matches to the original prints or transparencies you are scanning. By assigning custom digital camera/light source profiles to their corresponding images, you can get colors that better match the colors of the original scene.

However, you should NOT assign a printer or output profile from a lab or a printer or paper manufacturer. This is when you use the “Convert to Profile” tool.

Converting to Profiles

As opposed to assigning a profile, when you perform a conversion you go from one colour space into another. Here, the goal is to change the RGB values, so that the colours are kept the same.

To convert an image in Photoshop we launch the “Convert to Profile” window from Edit in the menu bar.

In performing a conversion, we have three options.

1 - The first is the colour engine or colour management module (CMM). This does the math under the hood when a conversion is performed. At the moment this selection does not have a big impact on the conversion and Adobe (ACE) is a good general choice.

2 - The second option is rendering intent. The rendering intent controls gamut compression or how in-gamut colours, that can be reproduced, are handled during a conversion. Out-of-gamut colours, that can’t be reproduced, are always brought into the gamut of our destination space, but with photographic images we have two choices for handling the in-gamut colours:

• We can shift the in-gamut colours to maintain the overall relationship of colours, called Perceptual, or 
• We can keep the in-gamut colours unchanged or as close as possible, which is called Relative Colorimetric. Using the Preview check box, you can decide which intent you prefer for the image(s).

3 - The final options are two check boxes. “Use Black Point Compensation” is checked to help maintain shadow detail. It is especially important to have this checked with colorimetric rendering intents. “Use Dither” is checked to help maintain smoothness in gradations, like the sky of this image.

Practical reasons to convert to a profile could include:

1. Putting Images into Working Color Spaces: Before working on images in Photoshop, it is better to have them in standard, independent, neutral colour spaces, like sRGB, ColorMatchRGB, or Adobe(RGB). One reason is so that the Info Palate’s RGB values will have more meaning. When the red, green, and blue values are equal in one of these spaces the colour is a true neutral. If you are in a device space, such as scanner or monitor space, this is, most likely, not the case and values can’t be used.
2. Preparing Images for Lab Printing: As I discussed in my May article, you can convert using your lab’s printer and paper profile before sending images. But remember it’s important to tell them not to make any adjustments or conversions to these images once you have already converted them.
3. Preparing Images for the Web: If you are saving files for the Web, it’s best to convert the images to sRGB, which is currently the standard colour space for this industry. Make sure to embed the profile when saving the image.

Another place Photoshop performs conversions is in the “Print with Preview” window. You select the option “Let Photoshop Determine Colours” under the Colour Management tab and select the printer paper profile. This could be a generic profile or, preferably, a custom profile built by you or a professional. The conversion to the printer and paper colour space happens on the fly as you send the image to the printer. This will help you get the best match from monitor to your printer and paper combination.

Blurb Photography Book Now Competition

Blurb has a book competition which I will enter with my Blurb book.



The following is from their website:

Photography Book Now 2010 is here, and the call for entries is on!

Photography Book Now is a celebration of the most creative and innovative photography books, and the people behind them. This is your chance for international recognition and a shot at the $25,000 Grand Prize. The winning books will become a part of a permanent collection housed at the George Eastman House, International Center of Photography, and Annenberg Space for Photography.

We’re accepting submissions for the third annual competition now, and we want to see your best work. Last year we had more than 2,000 submissions from 45 countries. This year we’re hoping for even more from Blurbarians worldwide. Darius Himes returns as lead judge, along with a panel of world-renowned editors, publishers, and photographers including:

• Monica Allende, London Sunday Times
• David Fahey, Fahey/Klein
• Michael Mack, Steidl/Mack
• Lesley A. Martin, Aperture
• Susan Meiselas, Photographer
• Erin O’Toole, San Francisco MoMA
• Martin Parr, Photographer
• Judith Puckett-Rinella, New York Times T Magazine
• Brian Smith, Photographer

So head on over to the website and submit your photography book. We can’t wait to see what you’ve got.

Book Size

As I’m doing a Blurb book, I only have a limited choice of sizes. I will either go for:

Standard Landscape – 10 x 8 inches



Large Landscape – 13 x 11 inches




I have designed the book as a Standard Landscape so far and it won’t take too much trouble to redo it in the larger format. However, I can’t decide. The 10x8 seems a little too small and the 13x11 seems too big. The big book will have more impact, but the smaller book will be easier to read/carry, etc. I will seek advice from my tutor about this.

Book Maquette

I have now completed my book maquette. I am pleased with the results. Obviously, I’m not a graphic designer, so it’s possibly full of little faults that I haven’t picked up on.

In the book, I will include the job titles in the contents page, but they will not accompany the images in the book as I don’t want to make it too obvious what the different people do for a job (apart from the fireman and policeman). Some pictures may be dropped from the book, but overall, I am pleased with the way the pictures look together and am looking forward to speaking with Dewi Lewis on Thursday, who will no doubt, offer an invaluable critique and advice.

I hope to send the book off to Blurb on Saturday, so I hope there’s not too much more work to be done.

Dewi Lewis Critique

Dewi Lewis visited the University of Bolton yesterday to look at our work. He made the following comments:

• No subtitles required in the book - which I am glad about. I didn't like them anyway!
• It was a good project and I was very close on it.
• It would have been better if I had found some 'quirky' nightworkers - people who do more unusual jobs.
• Getting a balance of images in the book - the exterior shots are fine, but the sequencing of the internal images - light v dark needs looking at.
• Turn the grey text down from 50% to 20%-30%.
• Consider the size. Usually books will be 240-245 mm wide, but said it would be OK to do the larger book for the project.

My Book

My book came back from Blurb a short time ago and I am reasonably pleased with the results. The front cover works well – I used the photograph of the firefighter taken during the Travel Project as I thought it was the strongest image for the cover.



The type works well and is unobtrusive.

Inside the book, I feel I have left too many blank pages at the beginning and the end. I did this because I have seen this in other books, but next time I will cut out two pages in the front and back.

I kept the inside type at 30% which works well, but in retrospect, I may make it slightly smaller next time. However, the black pages have come out dark grey, which, at first, I was upset about, but now I think they work well as the photographs do not meld into the background and become ‘lost’.

The photographs appear flatter in the book than they are, but this is normal. Some of the participants did not give me an interview and the opposite pages look empty (waiting to be filled). In some cases, I have put two photographs on opposite pages, facing each other, which worked very well, but in other cases, the photographs didn’t ‘fit’ together, so I put them on separate pages. I feel that I should have put all the non-interviewees on facing pages, which would also help to break the continuity of the book more. I also wish I had removed the prison officer photograph, as I don’t think it works well with the other images.

I was worried about the size of the book, but I think it is fine. For the exhibition in January, however, I will produce more books (with the improvements stated above), but this time smaller, as they will be cheaper to produce.

The night photographs used to break up the book work well. I regret not having the chance to photograph the star trails, but all these image have an ‘urban’ feel and look good.

On the whole, the book is what I was trying to achieve, but I think it can be improved. It is difficult when designing a book for the first time and using new software to know what you are going to get and in future, I will ensure that I make a ‘test’ book with Blurb, so I can see the final result before I order the final book. The maquette was very helpful, but I feel that until you have the real book in front of you, you can’t really see what works and what needs to be improved.